Short-pulse laser radiation can be used to create or treat a variety of semiconductor materials in order to enhance their functionality. For example, the properties of silicon photo detectors can be improved and stabilized using short pulse laser radiation treatment. Current techniques for semiconductor surface modification, including doping, using short-pulse laser radiation typically require vacuum evacuation of a sealed chamber containing the material to be surface-modified then filling the chamber with doping fluids or inert fluids so in order to create an environment conducive to the process.
However, these techniques and other approaches still suffer from drawbacks such as dopant fluid consumption, contamination by process by-products, beam path interference, inefficient batch processing, manufacturing complexities, and semiconductor substrate size limitations, among others.